Project culture as a key project success factor: The perspective of polish project managers

Abstract

Project management has the potential to play a key role in the effective functioning of a company. In spite of the intensive development of project management knowledge and tools, however, the ratio of projects which fail is still very high. For the above reason, interest in research dedicated to project success determinants has been increasing. Although existing empirical studies provide numerous evidence on project key-success factors, rrelatively little research has been devoted to examination of project culture in the context of its impact on the final results of projects. The study’s objective entails analysis of how project culture mediates the relationship between project characteristics and project outcome. For this purpose, a questionnaire has been developed, which was distributed among 138 project managers representing Polish enterprises. A theoretical model has been proposed, linking project attributes and project culture to project outcome. The results of the empirical studies indicate that inclusion of project culture, with special attention paid to its openness, significantly contributes to the clarification of the way project attributes affect project outcome.